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Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43 Jean Sibelius hanks to benefactions arranged by Axel four tone poems based on characters from TCarpelan, a Finnish man-about-the-arts Dante’s Divine Comedy . But once Sibelius re - and the eventual dedicatee of this work, Jean turned to Finland that June, he began to rec - Sibelius and his family were able to undertake ognize that what was forming out of his a trip to Italy from February to April 1901. So sketches was instead a full-fledged sym - it was that much of the Second Symphony phony — one that would end up exhibiting was sketched in the Italian cities of Florence an extraordinary degree of unity among its and, especially, Rapallo, where Sibelius sections. With his goal now clarified, Sibelius rented a composing studio apart from the worked assiduously through the summer and home in which his family was lodging. fall and reached a provisional completion of Aspects of the piece had already begun to his symphony in November 1901. Then he form in his mind almost two years earlier, al - had second thoughts, revised the piece pro - though at that point Sibelius seems to have foundly, and definitively concluded the Sec - assumed that his sketches would end up in ond Symphony in January 1902. various separate compositions rather than in The work’s premiere, two months later, a single unified symphony. Even in Rapallo marked a signal success, as did three sold-out he was focused on writing a tone poem. He performances during the ensuing week. The reported that on February 11, 1901, he enter - conductor Robert Kajanus, who would be - tained a fantasy that the villa in which his come a distinguished interpreter of Sibelius’s studio was located was the fanciful palace of works, was in attendance, and he insisted Don Juan and that he himself was the that the Helsinki audiences had understood amorous, amoral protagonist of that legend. (The topic was fresh in his mind since he had IN SHORT recently attended a performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni in Berlin, on the way to Italy.) Born: December 8, 1865, in Tavastehus He jotted in his diary the thoughts that ac - (Hämeenlinna), Finland costed him at midnight: Died: September 20, 1957, in Järvenpää Don Juan. I was sitting in the dark in my Work composed: 1901 –02, although relevant sketches date back to as early as 1899; castle when a stranger entered. I asked dedicated to Baron Axel Carpelan who he could be again and again — but there was no answer. I tried to make him World premiere: March 8, 1902, in Helsinki, laugh but he remained silent. At last the Finland, with the composer conducting the Helsinki Philharmonic stranger began to sing — then Don Juan knew who it was. It was death. New York Philharmonic premiere: January 30, 1914, with Walter Damrosch conducting His diary then records the notes that stand as the New York Symphony (which merged with the New York Philharmonic in 1928) the principal theme of the second movement of the Second Symphony. Most recent New York Philharmonic As the work evolved, Sibelius seems to performance: May 14, 2016, John Storgårds, have sacrificed the Don Juan idea in favor of conductor another, very different concept: a series of Estimated duration: ca. 45 minutes 40 | NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC the new symphony to be an overt expression “There is something about this music — at of the political conflict then reigning over least for us — that leads us to ecstasy; almost Finland. He wrote: like a shaman with his magic drum.” Some commentators have underscored the The Andante strikes one as the most bro - piece’s affinity with the symphonies of ken-hearted protest against all the injus - Brahms (particularly his Second, also in D tice that threatens at the present time to major), while others find that the Finale deprive the sun of its light and our flowers evokes something of Tchaikovsky. There’s of their scent. … The Finale develops to - truth in all of this, but in the end, Sibelius ward a triumphant conclusion intended to marches to a different drummer. Stravinsky rouse in the listener a picture of lighter and once heard Sibelius’s Second Symphony in confident prospects for the future. the company of his teacher, Nikolai Rimsky- Korsakov, and reported that the latter offered Sibelius objected to this interpretation, pre - a solitary comment after the performance: ferring that no programmatic implications be “Well, I suppose that’s possible, too.” attached to this work. Nonetheless, this symphony does seem to express something Instrumentation: two flutes, two oboes, specific to the Finnish imagination. The two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three composer Sulho Ranta (1901–60) spoke on be - trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, half of his fellow Finns when he declared, and strings. Sibelius’s Finland Finland was undergoing its share of turmoil at the turn of the 20th century, straining with nation - alistic fervor against the yoke of its Russian occupiers. In the late 1800s Finns seemed ready to burst with pent-up excitement over homegrown culture, which extended to the collecting of tradi - tional music and dance, a fascination with ancient Finnish legends, and a resurgence in the use of the Finnish language itself. Sibelius was greatly caught up with the artists and writers and mu - sicians who were plying their trades in sup - port of an independent Finland, and he turned out a hearty diet of pro-Finnish patri - otic and propagandistic compositions. A few of his successes from this nationalistic period — the tone poems The Swan of Tuonela, Lem - minkäinen’s Return, and Finlandia among them — began to earn him a reputation even beyond Finnish borders, making him the first Finnish composer to gain truly international acclaim. Pioneers in Karelia, by Eero Järnefelt, 1900, one of the artists closely associated with depictions of Finnish nationalism OCTOBER 2018 | 41.

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